"It's just a nice way to pay tribute to all those that were lost so horribly, you know, all those that suffered," said Gail Langos, who was walking with her dachshunds, Merlin and Muffin.

Madona, an offshore cook, and Smith, a house painter, took turns wearing the big brown head, which bore resemblance to Scooby-Doo. Smith said they inherited it from friends who didn't return to the city after Katrina.

Madona said the costume piece looked like his Doberman, Phideaux (pronounced "Fido"). The flat-nosed blue stuffed animal represented his red-nose pit bull, Blue, while a small black stuffed dog was for Smith's Chihuahua, Baby, which died before the hurricane.

Madona said he had to leave by bus for Houston, and couldn't take his pets. Smith stayed through the storm. She said she rescued her neighbors' dogs, covering their paws with duct tape to keep their claws from breaking the rubber raft a neighbor had left. She kept one of the dogs.

John Clark of Arabi and friend Mary Horaist of Kenner carried small sunflower bouquets and photographs of their 15-year-old dogs. They took both of them out of New Orleans, but both died afterward.

Clark, personnel director for St. Bernard Parish, had to have Katie-Raz euthanized after the power went out in Bogalusa and she went into respiratory failure.

"I promised Katie that when she would die, she would die looking into my eyes," he said.

Horaist had been nursing Fred through kidney failure with subcutaneous fluids even before the storm. Power outages, downed trees and phone failures left her unable to reach a veterinarian from the blueberry farm in Poplarville, Miss., where she had taken refuge.

Before the march began Sunday, the Rev. Bill Terry of St. Anna's Episcopal Church spoke briefly with members of the Treme Brass Band. "You know what to do," he told them. "You've done it a million times before."